Car
Park charges - in most cases where we meet in a public or site car park there
will be a parking fee to pay so please bring change with you.

Sunday 11th January: Bird Crawl. 09:30 - 14:00 approx.

Just
for fun, a more sedate version of a bird race.How many species can you find around Upton Country Park and Holes Bay? Meet
in the car park at the entrance to Upton CP (SY 991932). Category A - but can
be muddy in places.

Somerset
is a wonderful county for birds. From Exmoor, the Quantocks and Bridgwater Bay
in the west, through the Blackdown, Mendip and Polden Hills and the low-lying
Levels and Moors in the centre, to Selwood Forest in the east, it supports more
than 200 different species of bird.

Now
Somerset’s very special birdlife has been mapped in a new book: the Somerset Atlas of Breeding & Wintering
Birds, to be published in November.

Produced
by the Somerset Ornithological Society (SOS) and British Trust for Ornithology
(BTO), with thousands of records collected by more than 600 volunteers, this is
the very first time the birds of Somerset have been documented so thoroughly.

The
Atlas will be an invaluable resource both now and in the future, to help us
plan how best to help Somerset’s birdlife. It is also a fascinating snapshot of
the current status and distribution of birds in Somerset.

Species
featured include common residents such as the Robin and Blackbird, summer
visitors including the Cuckoo, Swift and Swallow, passage migrants such as
seabirds and waders, and winter visitors – amongst them thousands of ducks,
geese and swans.

The
Atlas also confirms that Somerset is now home to some exciting new arrivals,
taking advantage of the newly created wetland habitats on the Somerset Levels.
Bitterns have returned to breed after an absence of almost half a century,
while new arrivals from the south including Great White and Little Egrets,
Little Bittern, and the reintroduced flock of Cranes now in residence on the
southern part of the levels. Meanwhile Buzzards, Red Kites and Peregrines –
once driven to the edge of extinction by poisoning and pesticides – are now a
regular sight in Somerset’s skies.

But
it’s not all good news. Many once common and familiar birds have either
declined in numbers or in a few sad cases have disappeared completely. The tiny
Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is not longer found in the county’s cider apple
orchards, while Yellowhammers no longer sing their characteristic
‘little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheeese’ song from many of our hedgerows. Willow
Tit, Grasshopper Warbler and Merlin have almost disappeared as breeding birds,
while Turtle Doves and Corn Buntings are no longer found in Somerset at all.

To
combat these declines, conservationists, birders and volunteers are now joining
forces to improve existing habitats and create new ones, to try to bring these
lost birds back and to encourage new colonists. Who knows what the next decade
will bring: maybe White Storks, Glossy Ibis and even Bee-eater could breed here
for the first time.

The Somerset Atlas of Breeding
& Wintering Birds is on a special offer price of £25 + £4.95 postage and
packing - £29.95 total, until 31 December 2014, after which the cover price
will rise to £35 + p&p.